Traffic: Overturned truck, fuel spill cleared on Route 50

Joe Burris and Kevin Rector, The Baltimore Sun

All lanes are open on westbound Route 50 after an early Thursday morning incident involving a truck spill on the roadway near Baydale Drive stalled traffic for nearly four hours, according to the State Highway Administration.

Around 9:25 a.m., SHA spokesman Dave Buck said that the incident, which according to Anne Arundel Fire Department officials occurred around 5:30 a.m., had been cleared, with the wrecked vehicle being escorted along the shoulder by State Police.

Emergency personnel with the Anne Arundel County Fire Department first responded to the scene and found the truck overturned and the driver, a 50-year-old man, with serious but non-life-threatening injuries, said Division Chief Keith Swindle, a department spokesman.

The incident initially closed two of three lanes and the right shoulder of Route 50 just west of the Bay Bridge, SHA officials said. Around 8 a.m., vehicles sat at a near stand-still for miles, all the way back to the bridge. At that time, officials reopened one of the stalled lanes, giving motorists two lanes closest to the center median on which to travel, but soon afterward, the roadway had intermittent closures.

At 8:45 a.m., all lanes on westbound Route 50 were closed as officials up-righted the truck for removal, said SHA spokesman Charlie Gischlar. Earlier, he said, state Department of the Environment officials drained the truck's saddle tanks, one of which was leaking, and cleared the roadway of the resulting fuel spill.